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Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are taking aim at the use of human growth hormone, the NFL’s unique status as a nonprofit, the special antitrust exemption granted to professional football, and a number of other player health, safety and labor issues.

A key congressman has given the NFL and the players union a July deadline — the opening of NFL training camps — to resolve the ongoing fight over HGH testing or face hearings. The league and the NFL Players Association agreed two years ago to mandatory HGH tests but no tests have yet taken place.

The congressional interest in HGH resembles the scrutiny of steroid use by Major League Baseball players in recent years, and the NFL has only to look there for a cautionary tale. Mark McGwire’s refusal to answer questions at a famed 2005 hearing on steroid use; a 2008 follow-up hearing led to perjury charges for Roger Clemens. (He was found not guilty last year.).

“There’s nothing good for the NFL to come out of hearings like this,” said former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who chaired the 2005 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. “It just exposes their dirty underwear.”

“We shone a light on something that wasn’t very pretty, and it got cleaned up,” Davis said about the baseball hearings. “But it’s a lot harder and the risks are higher now” for the NFL.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House oversight committee, said in April that he wanted a resolution to the HGH issue by July — or his committee would start calling players to testify under oath. Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Cummings wrote the union in January to demand answers on the HGH use.

According to a spokesperson for the oversight committee, the players union provided the requested documents and information. The committee declined to share them with POLITICO, citing privacy.

“Our position has been that we want the NFL players to do what they’ve already agreed to do,” Cummings told POLITICO. “They agreed in their contracts almost two years ago that they would take the test.

“It sends a strong message to children that they’re willing to subject themselves to these tests,” he added.

The league has primarily been trying to use its clout on Capitol Hill to push for a resolution of the drug issue without congressional interference. The NFL’s lobbying campaign mostly used their outside firms for quiet, targeted outreach to the offices that care most about the issue: Issa; Cummings; Rep. Henry Waxman, the top Energy and Commerce Committee Democrat; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).